A few things;
When I transitioned from guitar to drums I had a problem chasing other players with bad time. I felt I had to lock in with them (wherever they were) to be perceived as a valid drummer. Eventually, after playing with both good and marginal musicians, I learned to set the time and groove, and stick to it. As Hal Galper points out in this vid (thanks to Pol for turning me on to this series)
http://youtu.be/a2XnB5G6oSc to hear the beat and the music so loudly in my own head that it only comes out where I hear it. So if folks start rushing ahead of you, stay the course and make them come back to you. I was at a jam the other night where the regular drummer is one of those folks who plays way on top and people tend to chase him resulting in a rush. After the first song, the leader remarked to the bass player "So that's how that song sounds when we don't rush and the tempo's consistent".
You should practice to the point where you can play something much faster than necessary. Just getting through it isn't enough. You should be comfortable enough with it that you are concentrating on the musical aspects of it. Feeling the pulse, following the dynamics, finding the syncopation within the members of the group that makes the sound feel alive.
To that end (although it's probably harder with metal music where certain high speed things are de-rigure for the genre) when the tempo is beyond you, try simplifying the part that's causing trouble. For example, when confronted with a Samba that's faster than I'm comfortable with, I'll usually skip all the double strokes on the kick. Concentrating on hitting a single stroke on the one so that the pulse and drive is there. I can usually get the second beat to come in place and after awhile both double strokes may fall into place. But I concentrate on what I feel is the essential parts and leave the ornamentation to either fall into place comfortably, or be left out as my day is going.
The last thing has to do with the confusion between playing ahead of the beat and playing with drive. A lot of people think that you have to play the entire pattern ahead of where everyone else is to achieve drive. Not so. Go back and listen to the great drummers who made things come alive and you'll find a pulse with some sort of anchor that's where it belongs. And which the rest of the band is using to keep the tempo even. Different players may be putting the forward pulse on different counts, which creates syncopation. But even if they are only hearing it in their head, they have an anchor point in the measure that keeps them from rushing. In most 4/4 patterns it is often on the 3rd beat of the measure. Sometimes, as in a swing, it is implied by dividing how far apart the 1 and 2 are and using that mid point as the anchor. That is basically the same thing as the rate (or tempo) at which those swung notes are played. Note that a swing can be displaced outward with the 1 early and the 2 late, or inward with the 1 late and the 2 early. But the rate at which you repeat doing that is the tempo. If you are doing 16th kick strokes in metal, you can still put a bit of pulse into it. 1 on top, 2 pulled back to offset, 3 on top and 4 back a corresponding amount. It doesn't take much to convey some drive. You don't need to make a highly offset hip-hop thing out of it. Just enough pulse that it feels energetic. With the tempo steady, and an anchor point to lock into, the band shouldn't been chasing you and rushing.